In Biloxi, Katrina Played No Favorites

On that last Saturday in August, Katrina was only a
distant storm to folks in Biloxi, one of many that spin
through the Gulf of Mexico every year. In fact, it was so
beautiful that afternoon that the Rev. Carol Burnett and
her family celebrated her birthday by sailing in the Gulf.

The next morning, though, they awoke to news reports
that Katrina had grown into a Category 5 storm, and was
heading their way.

A Mississippi native, Burnett, who attended the divinity
school from 1976-78 and then graduated from Union
Seminary in 1981, had lived in Biloxi for years, working
since 1989 as director of Moore Community House. A
local mission agency of the United Methodist Church,
Moore Community House provided child-care and other
related services to low-income families in East Biloxi.
Established in 1924, the program had 40 kids enrolled in
an Early Head Start program, and another 24 children in
a preschool program.

Infant bibs hang over the door at Moore Community House, a mission for low-income families. Floodwaters from Katrina inundated the children's
center, which was established in 1924.

As Burnett and her staff made their own preparations
to evacuate, they quickly notified as many Moore
Community parents as they could reach to watch the
local news for word on when the center would reopen
after the storm.

“Looking back, we thought we would be away for the
weekend and then be back to work on Monday morning,”
Burnett says.“We had no idea how severe the
impact would be.”

After riding out the storm with her husband and four
children at her parents' house in Jackson, Burnett spent
an agonizing week, unable to return home. With trees
and power lines down, highways across southern
Mississippi were closed and only emergency vehicles
were allowed into the area.

When they finally made it back to Biloxi, they found
block after block reduced to rubble. Their own home
was destroyed, only the rough two-by-four framing propping
up a collapsed second story.

At Moore Community House, the damage was just as
bad. The program's eight buildings-essentially small
frame houses used for classrooms and offices - and
three playgrounds had been submerged to the rooftops.
One building had been knocked off its foundation by the
storm surge and another had been rammed by a neighbor's
house that had floated into it.

Inside, ceiling tiles had fallen in, and desks and equipment
was scattered and covered in muck. On the playgrounds,
jungle gyms and swings were crushed beneath
fallen trees.

“We've had so many hurricanes since I moved to the
coast, but it's always been just minor repairs and then
you move on,” says Burnett. “This has been completely
different. It has completely changed life throughout the
area.”

For Moore Community House, the most pressing task
since the storm has been to locate and equip an interim
facility. For now, the center and its board face a long
process of assessing damage, filing insurance claims, and working through the decision to rebuild what was left
behind or start anew. Architects gave her a preliminary
figure of $2.5 million in damages.

Meanwhile, the center has been caught in something
of a “Catch 22.” Unable to provide services, the program
currently has no revenue, either from Head Start funds or
other sources. As a result, they have had to cut staff. Only
five employees remain from the pre-Katrina staff of 32.

While Katrina played no favorites, demolishing the
homes of both rich and poor, its impact arguably falls
harder on the poor, says Burnett.

“For people who had jobs, but lived paycheck
to paycheck, it was a catastrophe,”
she says. If there has been any bright spot
in the aftermath of Katrina, Burnett says,
it has been the outpouring of support from
across the country, particularly from
United Methodists.

UMC congregations from northern
Mississippi, Tennessee, North Carolina
and elsewhere have sent relief teams and
other assistance. Myers Park United
Methodist Church in Charlotte, N.C., has
talked with Burnett about establishing a
long-term relationship to provide help
throughout the recovery process.

“We're an organization that provides
services, but now we're an organization
that needs services of our own,” says
Burnett. “We're supposed to meet the
community's needs, but now we have
needs ourselves.”